Proximity: The Gauntlet
by Boz0
Summary: Multiverse. Self Insert. OrigAuthors An invisible man must find shattered parts of his soul in order to cross into the afterlife. Aided by a device known as 'The Proximity Gauntlet,' he must travel the multiverse lest he be doomed to forever wander between realities. However, nobody told him he'd find the solution to his problems in multiple animes he once thought to be fiction.


I awoke blurry eyed in a sea of white, light searing into my eyes and scalding my retinas. It was as if someone gouged them out with a red-hot poker, while every single ounce of skin on my body began to blister and boil. My head felt like it had been slammed repeatedly against the broken asphalt of an already battered and beaten up road, the taste of iron in my mouth perplexing me, causing me to shiver as I repressed the urge to vomit.

To put it bluntly, I felt like shit.

I steadied myself on shaky feet, all the muscles in my body quivering as I fought a war within myself to simply stand. However, my efforts were fruitless as I felt myself tumbling down, my body failing me as I became one with the floor once again. The dryness in my mouth was getting to me, my esophagus felt as if it was violently stuffed with cotton, with my tongue feeling brittle as it hung limply in my mouth.

'W-What the fuck is going on?'

My stomach heaved, sucking up against the back of my ribs as I lost control of my gag reflex. I felt awful, coupled with a bitter sensation of something creeping up my throat. At first I didn't think anything of it, until I realized that I was bleeding. Dots of crimson began to appear on the ivory floor, following by a small and steady stream of a thick, pasty black substance.

God, I'll say it again. I felt so damn terrible. My guts were melting, or, at least I thought they were.

As I raised a hand to my face, my heart palpitated and skipped a beat, my blood turned frigid in my veins.

My hands…

 _'I can't see them.'_

 ** _'What the hell is happening to me!'_**

My mind screamed at me, and I found myself echoing that sentiment as I began to flail my arms against the floor. I couldn't see a single part of me, nor could I form the words to cry out in an effort to voice my anguish. It was as if I had returned to some infantile stage of development.

I couldn't speak.

I couldn't hear.

I couldn't walk.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

I had no perception of myself. I felt dead. It was like there was an emptiness inside of me, swirling around and absorbing my innards and very soul.

I tried to recall a time in which I had a similar experience. Yet in similarity to my previous inconvenience of being unable to speak, I could not remember such a memory.

What was my name?

When was I born?

Did I have a family?

 _'I can't fucking remember. Shit…'_

 ** _'SHIT!'_**

I slammed an invisible hand against the clinically white floor, leaving a sizable imprint of my fist in the puddle of muck I had expelled from my body earlier.

Deep breaths….

Calm yourself…

It took me a bit, but I managed to collect myself. Gaze turned downward to the floor, I felt my pupils dilate as my eyes widened in shock.

I could see my hand.

Granted, it was caked with bloody gunk, but I could see it.

And in the end, that's all that really mattered.

I let loose a breath that I realize I hadn't been holding in, finding some solace in the fact that I still had a body, although I couldn't perceive it with my own eyes.

Suddenly, a large crevice had formed in the middle of this colorless hell of mine, the ground fracturing in two as the void let loose an audible groan. Everything began to shake, and I my mind began to race once more as I found myself panicking. There was only so much weird shit that a normal human could put up with in one day and still remain sane.

The shakiness began to fade and simmer down into a gentle rumble, the ringing in my ears gradually subsiding alongside it as I whimpered.

A pale blue light glimmered and pulsed all around me, my skin tingling as if scrubbed with ice water. The whiteness began to darken, eventually shifting into the the softening colors of a night sky. Blue on blue, strokes of sapphire flying around in wisps in this endless chasm that contained me. I didn't know what to think of this sudden change of scenery and circumstance, but I assumed that it was far better than where I was a few moments ago.

Of course, I still felt awful, and my mouth was still trickling blood no matter how much I wiped it, but still.

"Welcome."

 _'Wait, what?'_

The booming voice echoed across the midnight blue vacuity, resonating throughout the gap in which time and space were non existent, a place in which there was no rhyme or reason. It was androgynous, emotionless, coldly blunt.

I opened my mouth to speak, only to find no words would come forth. It was just me and my thoughts, and I found myself growing increasingly agitated the longer I went without a voice.

" There has been an error in the reincarnation process that has left you in stasis. Due to this unforeseen circumstance, we deemed it necessary to place you in soul storage."

My brow furrowed as I gritted my teeth.

 _'I was placed in some kind of purgatory for lost souls? Being left in a vegetative state as I laid there rotting like trash? The nerve of this intangible asshole.'_

"You are a fool and a hypocrite if you believe as such." It stated flatly, as if it were fact. "Please stand by as we evaluate the situation."

 _'Great, a mind reader.'_

There was a pause as the voice fell quiet, and I found myself becoming uneasy with the awkward and uncomfortable silence filling the chamber once more.

However, it was short lived as a familiar sound reached my ears.

"We have identified the source of the problem." It droned, "You cannot pass on while your soul is incomplete."

 _'Incomplete? What the hell was that supposed to-'_

"Your spiritual essence has been fractured as a result of an unknown variable, crystallizing into what are known as shards." It announced, interrupting my thoughts and causing me to clutch my ears and wince. This guy was loud. "These contain the hidden inner workings of the human spirit. Emotions, memories, feelings, hopes, dreams… You cannot recycle into the next life without collecting these fragments."

I didn't know what to think of this. Something bothered me, but I couldn't figure out what. Was it the fact that I was technically dead? Or was it the inability to remember what caused it, sparking this now seemingly drug induced pipe dream in which I literally had to go soul searching?

A little bit of both, probably.

 _'And how am I supposed to do that? It's not like I could just get up and leave this place, especially considering that my legs are useless.'_

"We find your current predicament perturbing." It replied, "As a result, we have created a device that will assist you in the collection of the shards of your soul. Along with it, we have obtained the first shard out of many."

While it was good to hear that I would have some assistance with this bullshit, I remained uneasy. I knew I was going to regret asking, well, more so thinking the question, but I had to know.

 _'How many shards do I need to find?'_

The reply was almost instantaneous, and, as bad news always was, equally heartrending.

"Unknown."

Holy fuck.

I wanted to give up right now. And I would've, but that'd mean I'd never move on. It was kind of like buying a lottery ticket. If you bought one, there's a minuscule chance of you winning, heavy odds stacked against you rendering it nigh impossible. But if you didn't purchase one, then by all means, you didn't have a snowball's chance in hell.

I didn't have a choice. I had to do this.

 _'At least give me the first shard.'_ I internally grumbled, still lying on the floor while being completely inert.

"As it stands, you cannot absorb a shard without manifesting it into a substance that is easily processed by the human body." The Voice told me as a-matter-of-factly. "First you must convert it into blood."

Right, made sense. Blood is life and all that jazz. It was just like they taught in Bible School. Blood of life and whatnot.

What heck was it with all the pain and bodily fluids in the afterlife? I'll never understand it.

 _'Then how the hell am I supposed to recover it?'_

I felt something snap around my wrist, swaddling the digits of my hand in an all encompassing vice, followed by a barely audible click. However, seeing as the universe thought I was a glutton for punishment, I wasn't very surprised when I felt the sudden jolt of pain as something impaled itself through my through my wrist, snaking all the way up my arm. By God, if I didn't know any better, I'd say this thing just gave me an IV.

I looked down and gave an experimental lift of my numbed arm.

I'll admit, what I saw fascinated me. Across the entire portion of my invisible limb, was a slim, grayish gauntlet that glimmered softly with an amber sort of light, a red ring pulsating in the center. It was metal, I assumed, that made up a large portion of the device, followed by rubber insulators beginning at my knuckles and ending at the tip of my fingers. All in all, in kind of looked like a finger-less glove.

It was surreal seeing nothing but a seemingly disembodied arm floating in the nothingness. But what was even more surreal was when it spoke.

"Proximity Glove initialized. Insert soul shard for essence conversion."

 _'Woah.'_

The Voice, whom which I'll now simply refer to as 'V,' interrupted my thoughts by manifesting a ruby colored crystal into existence, humming softly as the shard fell directly into the gloved palm of my hand.

"There we are."

What happened next, was almost indescribable. My fingers involuntarily wrapped themselves around the shard, gripping it tighter and tighter while I felt the jagged edges cut painfully into my hand. The shard began to liquidize and churn into a small sphere of rotating goo, before sinking into the gauntlet and seeping into my veins. I saw my veins turn slightly red, slowly snaking up my arm before reaching my brain.

 _'Nice.'_ I thought to myself, _'This is nice.'_

My entire body felt pleasantly warm, the sensation spreading out into my legs and chest.

"Shard initialized." The Gauntlet droned, "Allocating memory."

I heard voices I did not recognize, yet felt oddly relaxed as the sounded familiar at the same time.

A man and a woman.

 _Who's mommy's favorite boy?_

 _Can you say Mama?_

 _Look honey, he's already walking! Only at a year old, too!_

 _Goodnight pumpkin._

"Ma?" I choked out, feeling a tear roll down my cheek. "Dad?"

And so I found my voice.

I knew those were my parents; I'd recognize those voices anywhere. There was a pang in my chest as I tried to recall more information, but stopped when I realize the futility of it. I would have to find more shards.

"How fortuitous!" V exclaimed, their voice showing the slightest hint of emotion as they continued. "We never expected that it would a memory that would've allowed you to regain your basic abilities."

I staggered to my feet, wiping my eyes with the hand that I could see. "Yeah, yeah."

"Shard located. Deploying anti-material transportation portal."

 _'This damn thing will never shut up.'_

A purple vortex opened up behind me, and I felt myself hesitate to go through.

"We wish you luck, Gambler." V whispered, her voice fading out until I could no longer hear it.

 _'Fuck it, it sounds like a girl sorta. I need more women in my life anyway.'_

Stopping to ponder, I turned away and mused quietly..

 _'Gambler? What kind of name was that?'_

I would have to ask later, if I ever met V again. But, seeing as I felt a tugging on the small part of my soul I now had, it would have to wait.

Somehow, I knew it was going to be a long, wild ride.


End file.
